Public debate has now turned its jaundiced eye upon the “hot button” of gay marriage. As usual, we have reduced a complex issue to a for-or-against declaration, with no consideration of the underlying subtleties. These subtleties not only make a position on the issue less clear-cut, but they also speak about other, older rifts in our society.

Before considering gay marriage, we should first think about the broader concept of marriage. There are four aspects of marriage:

1. A commitment between the two people involved in the marriage. This is the vow.
2. A recognition of that commitment provided by the family and friends of the people committing to each other. This is why they are invited to the ceremony.
3. An approval of that commitment by a religious institution. This often includes holding the ceremony in a house of worship and/or officiation by a clergy member.
4. A legal status conferred on the committed couple by the state. This includes certain tax benefits, inheritance rights and the right to make certain decisions on behalf of one’s partner.

When viewed from this perspective, the controversy over gay marriage becomes clearer. It is the obviously the objection of religious institutions that is creating the furor. Two people may choose to commit to each other, and that commitment may be recognized by their circle of friends and family (or not – gay people can make bad marriage decisions just like straight people). These two aspects of marriage are personal and communal, not subject to the approval of a wider audience. If a religious institution does not wish to recognize a commitment, then that is their right. A religion is like a club that can pick and choose who it will allow membership, but it does not make or break a commitment between two people. It is also not a subject for public debate. The fourth aspect of marriage is what we really ought to be discussing. If “traditional” marriage confers certain legal rights and obligations on the couple, then it becomes a matter of civil rights to consider whether those rights and obligations ought to be extended to any two people who are prepared to commit to each other. If two elderly widows want to commit to each other and live together for mutual support and care, then they ought to benefit from that arrangement. If two men wish to engage in a business partnership, they also should be legally recognized by the state and granted certain rights. Which they already are, by the way.

The fact of the matter is that two gay people can already get married in their own eyes and in the eyes of their community. They may or may not desire the approval of their religion, but that is between them and their church. The real contention is a clarification of civil union as recognized by the state. If we restrict the rights of civil union to only one man – one woman relationships, then we are guilty of discrimination, pure and simple.

this is covered in the appropriate forum

He means the ethics, morality and justice forum, where we had a right good ding dong battle on this subjet on two or three threads.

No, you can't have a gay marriage. :bugeye: It shouldn't even be considered.

Originally posted by Mucker
No, you can't have a gay marriage. :bugeye: It shouldn't even be considered.

yes, you can have gay marriage. It already exists.

yes, you can have gay marriage. It already exists. Well it shouldn't. Gays should go to prison!

Surely one of the main reasons for marriage is to provide financial security for a woman. There are nine months when they (pregnant women) shouldn't really be working at all, and there are the few years when the child has to be raised. The woman cannot work during this time, and neither can the child, who also has to be clothed and fed.

Ain't touchin' that with a ten-foot pole.

Dearprudence - It's a tax thing. It changes the exemption by a quarter-milion dollars in certain home sales.

In General - I can't figure out why anybody would want to be legally bound to their partner. One of the dirty jokes in my circle right now is that I wouldn't have a daughter if I had what it took to beat the holy living shit out of my partner years ago. The woman can't be genuinely nice. And yes, as soon as I told her I wasn't running to Tijuana or anyplace else, she went from zero to bitch in two seconds. I understand the bit about while she's pregnant, but the dirty joke there is that when people would look at me askance and say, "How the hell are you putting up with the pregnancy?" I looked 'em in the eye and said, "What do you mean? I haven't noticed the difference. It's funny. We had a long talk a couple of weeks ago. Turns out her problem was that she thought I was going to leave after a year had passed. I assured her that I'm in this until she either gives me my daughter and sends me on the way or we finished our work, and that I was happy to try to buld a respectful relationship again. The net result was a loss in working respect. I just don't understand it. Actually, I think I do and it frightens me. Since a friend moved in with us, I've been kicked out of the third bedroom (in which I slept from time to time in the name of simple dignity) and cannot avoid the blare of soap operas in the afternoon. And I can tell you that my partner thinks she's a character on a soap opera. It hit me yesterday, listening to this unavoidable sound of bitch bleeding out of the television. I mean, I always made the joke that she thinks she's in a soap opera. But I never realized how acutely she was identifying with characters until I heard it.

My mother, in preparation for my daughter, offered me money to run my psyche through the professional wringer, and why not? I had quit my job and declared that I wasn't going back to work for a while, and then a night with Crack Sabbath and bang! ... here comes my first-ever blood relative. My mother wanted to make sure I was healthy. Of course, my partner, whose actions resulted in the suspension of my driving privileges (loooong story), essentially refused. Specifically, at the appointed time that I was to be delivered to a psychologist who really was a decent and bright man despite being destined to fail where others had already failed, she simply refused to appear. Repeatedly. I called off the sessions and went on with life. At the time, my daughter was too young for bus travel, ad nauseam ....

And it's not for the sob value. There's a comparative point: This psycho has in her medical benefits a specific mental health allowance worth thousands. And she won't use it!

Why ... why?! At what point in history would I actually have wanted to be legally bound to this woman?

I understand that equality is important for everybody. So if certain fags think I'm being disrespectful on certain occasions in the future, it's not because they're gay, but because they're married.

I mean, seriously ... one of my best friends, one who actually knows me better than anyone else, actually believes that the fact that I can put up with this without violence demonstrates what people have long believed, that I actually am utterly and completely bonkers.

And wouldn't that explain a great deal?

But come on ... why would I want to be attached to that ... woman ... anymore than I already am? She can kill my literary future but she will never own half of it.

And I've seen it happen to others. And yes, the stereotypes about men have some truth too. After a while, I just pick a place in the house and sit perfectly still. She only ever needs anything of me when I'm in motion to do something. Literally, she'll stare at your back without saying anything until you stop reading, typing, whatever, watch you walk down the hall toward the master bedroom, and when she hears the bathroom door swing shut she yells down the hall loudly enough to wake the baby, "Daddy!"

So I come back down the hall: "What?"

"Where are you going?"

"Well I was going to take a leak."

"But Emma Grace needs you. She's crying."

The unspoken punchline that belongs there is, "And she's four feet away from you while I'm trying to take a leak."

Seriously - do you want to be legally bound to ask permission to piss?

(1) Fuck marriage.
(2) The only proper benefit of marriage is that two people pledge to spend the rest of their lives making each other miserable instead of bugging the rest of us.
(3) Point #2 is not reflected in reality. We get to hear about the problems of married people (the irony of this post's content is suitable to my purposes) and we even pay for divorce courts with tax money.
(4) As long as marriage is a legal institution, any two consenting adults ought to be allowed union.

Gay marriage ought to be valid before the tax code. But I still think anyone getting married to anyone else is a really stupid idea.

Seriously. You know why I'm not getting laid tonight? Because she's frigid and needs professional assistance. You know why I'm not looking at porn? Because she won't go to bed. She wants to be asleep ten feet away from me. And frankly, one should not be forced to look at porn and masturbate in a room with too many windows while the woman denying him sex refuses to go sleep in the goddamn bedroom.

This is what the married look forward to.

You know what? When she finally cracks, I get to walk out with my daughter and leave her for the asylum. If I'm married, I'll actually have to divorce her as well. And since her last divorce never finished (it's not finalized, and we've had an on-again-off-again relationship for seven years) there's no way in hell I'm taking that chance.

Oh yeah, people. Line up and get ready.

My friends already call her my wife. But they're all very glad that she's not.

And she will crack. It's a matter of time. I don't have to push. Don't have to tweak. All I have to do is raise my daughter as best I can and that will annoy her sufficiently. Not because I'm getting more time with my daughter than she is. But because I'm paying attention to the baby and not the partner.

I think there's just a bunch of guys out there who want to wear a bridal gown to the honeymoon suite ....

(And on that pathetic joke, I should stop.)

This is what you get to look forward to!

... er ... yeah.

And no. I'm not telling you which soap opera character. I don't want to admit knowing the character's name. But if you happened to watch this character argue with her parents over the last couple days, then you know what it's like trying to actually breathe in this house.

Damn it ... okay. But remember: this is what you get to look forward to.

Tiassa:

So you're in the relationshhip from hell - you have my sympathy. It is certainly true that many (if not most) people are unfit for marriage.

But the original point of the thread was to assert that marriage has always been primarily a personal matter between two people and secondarily a matter between those two people and their circle of friends and family. Once religion and the state got their hooks into the process we got into yet another situation where cultural institutions told us how to live.

I say - if a religious sect wants to deny the homosexual, then so be it. Let them continue to live in the Middle Ages. The government, however, has no reasonable basis to deny the rights and responsibility granted to married people to any two adults who wish to commit to each other. It's a simple matter of civil rights.

If the church and the government fail to recognize two men or two women who wish to be married, then to hell with them. Their pledge to each other is good enough for me.

FYI - I am a 20-years married heterosexual of the Buddhist persuasion, if that matters.

It's not that I oppose gay marriage. Rather, I favor it. I just think the whole family dynamic in this country is sick--by that I mean ill and not necessarily intentionally perverse.

It's tragic that people still must aspire to this in order that society treat them justly.

As long as we're going to arrange ourselves by families--naturally sentimental but perhaps inefficient--I say as much stability as possible is a good thing. And if that means two partners of the same gender, then hooray: it's a stable family.

I think I'm just unnaturally grumpy about such relationships .... (Tha's obviously obvious, I think.) Oh, well.

Up until a bit over a century ago, in Scotland, you could get married to someone by declaring yourself married in front of witnesses. ie it was a personal matter between two people. It was similar in England, but also religion crept in so that by 600 or 700 years ago you found people getting married in the church porch, and then later on they got a blessing off the priest afterwards, which evolved into a full blown marriage service led by the priest.
So basically Im trying to say that a civil marriage between homosexuals neednt be treated any differently than a civil marriage between any other pair of consenting adults, who also happen to be heterosexual.

Tiassa -

You are absolutely correct that the interpersonal dynamics in many (if not most) families needs serious help. The problem is that the only institution pervasive and long-lived enough to take on the job (the church) is hopelessly outdated. Well, not all churches - some are progressive - but the majority sects are clinging to their Old Testaments and so the only suggestion they can give for stability is the patriarchal, my-way-or-you-go-to-hell brand of cultural organization. They are trying as hard as they can to hang on to the once-invincible position they once held, but their lack of success is glaringly obvious when you consider the "familial sickness" you cited in your post.

Do I have an answer? Yes, sort of. I am ready to abandon three thousand years of judeo-islamic-christian interloping and move on (or maybe return) to a humanistic way of doing things.

The basis for a sane culture can be found in the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. Add the works of Thomas Paine and Rand's Objectivism, plus a truly rational consideration of world history and we could make some headway against madness.

The controversies that we are bombarded with, whether gay marraige, abortion, communism or terrorism, are simply meant to distract us from the really serious injustices being perpetrated everywhere around us.

Guthrie:

That's exactly what I'm on about. Let's call it a civil union, whether it be two men who love each other or two old ladies who just find it easier to share a home and avoid the lonliness of old age. Let's give them legal recognition and community support and then stay the hell out of their business.

And let's tell Jerry Falwell to mind his own business as well.